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Humor Theories

by Don L. F. Nilsen

and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Victor Raskin’s Tripartite Classification

INCONGRUITY

Contrast

Incongruity

Resolution

HOSTILITY

Aggression

Superiority

Triumph

Derision

Disparagement

RELEASE

Sublimation

Liberation

Economy

(Attardo [2007], 103)

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Script-Model Grammar

• Raskin’s 1985 Semantic-Script Theory of Humor (SSTH) sees humor as a violation of Grice’s cooperative principle.

• A joke consists of two overlapping scripts.

• The two scripts are in opposition (bona-fide vs. scatalogical)

• The punch line changes the joke from the bona-fide to the scatalogical script.

(Attardo [2007] 108)

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Overlapping Scripts

• Overlapping scripts occur not only in jokes, but also in the allegory, the oxymoron, the conceit, the simile, and perhaps in all allusion, symbolism, double entendre and intertextuality.

• Overlapping scripts also occur in the master tropes--

metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony.

• And for all of these literary forms, there is the bona-fide (or literal) script, and the non-bona-fide (or figurative) script.

(Triezenberg [2008]: 536)

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Humor Enhancers

• Katrina Triezenberg notes that humorous discourse also has humor enhancers.

• “A humor enhancer is a narrative technique that is not necessarily funny in and of itself, but that helps the audience to understand that the text is supposed to be funny, that warms them up to the author and to the text so that they will be more receptive to humor, and that magnifies their experience of humor in the text.”

(Triezenberg [2008]: 537-538)

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• These humor enhancers allow a piece of humor to be instantaneous and epiphinal. They include:

– Shared stereotypes, – Cultural factors (prejudices, hang-ups,

taboos, etc.),– Familiarity (as with a good impersonation,

or as with something that is “spot-on”), and– Repetition and variation

(Triezenberg [2008]: 539)

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Why Mysteries Are Not Funny

• Jokes and lies both violate Grice’s “Conversational Implicatures.” They are both examples of “non-bona-fide communication.”

• In murder mysteries, the reader is often led down the garden path, and given false clues.

• To solve the mystery, the reader has to consider script oppositions to determine if scripts are not compatible with each other, and if not, why not.

(Triezenberg [2008]: 540)

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General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH)

1. Script Opposition

2. Incongruity & Resolution

3. Situation (including props)

4. Target (butt of the joke)

5. Genre (joke, riddle, etc.)

6. Language (compatible with both scripts)(Attardo [2007] 108)

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Jab Lines vs. Punch Lines

• Jab lines are tendentious, but punch lines are not.

• “Whereas punch lines are disruptive of the narrative they close, jab lines are not, and in fact often contribute to the development of the text.”

(Attardo [2007] 110).

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Salvatore Attardo’s Hierarchy

• Lines that are related form a strand.

• A bunch of related strands is called a stack.

• A bridge is the occurrence of two related lines far from each other.

• A comb is the occurrence of several related lines in close proximity.

(Attardo [2007] 111)

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Attardo’s Defining Moment

• “Each story that is not a picaresque story has a central defining event in the plot that sets the wheels in motion:

• Madame Bovary’s adultery

• Raskolnikoff’s homicide

• Lolita’s seduction, etc.”(Attardo [2007] 113)

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Sigmund Freud

• “Sigmund Freud distinguishes between innocent and tendentious jokes.”

(Attardo [2007], 104).

• RIDDLE: What do you get when you cross a mafioso with a postmodern theorist?

• ANSWER: Someone who will make you an offer you cannot understand.”

(Attardo [2007] 109)

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Humor Sophistication

• Victor Raskin notes that sophistication in humor is similar to sophistication more generally, and that it entails:

• Rarity, expensiveness, availability, complexity, exoticness, subtlety, refinement, obscurity, prestigiousness, desirability, unexpectedness, etc.

(Raskin [2008]) 12)

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Sophistication via Innuendo

• When I was young I helped a good fairy in distress, so she offered me a choice, an excellent memory or a large penis.

• I do not recall what I chose.

• NOTE: “Fewer and fewer people ‘get’ the jokes as sophistication increases.”

• “Perhaps sophistication correlates with the number of missing links in inferencing.”

(Raskin [2008] 13)

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Ranking of Humor Sophistication

• 1. He was a man of letters. He worked at the Post Office.

• 2. I am very unhappy. I have two girlfriends, and both are cheating on me.

• 3-9. No Examples Given

• 10. What’s the difference between the sparrow? No difference whatsoever. Both halves are identical, especially the left one.

(Raskin [2008] 13)

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Superiority Theory & HumorNeither a Necessary nor a Sufficient Condition

• When we see a Charlie Chaplin movie, do we feel superior to Charlie Chaplin.

• John Morreall feels that we laugh “at the clever and acrobatic way Charlie Chaplin gets out of a tough situation.”

• Morreall also notes that if we win a race, we feel superior to the losers, but humor does not automatically result from winning.

(Morreall [2008] 233)

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Discuss the following:

Humor is hostile

Humor diminishes self-control.

Humor is irresponsible

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Discuss the following:

• Humor is hostile• Humor diminishes self-control.• Humor is irresponsible.• Humor is insincere.• Humor is idle.• Humor is hedonistic.• Humor fosters sexual license.• Humor fosters anarchy.• Humor is foolish.

(Morreall [2008] 237-238)

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HUMOR THEORIES

• THE EVOLUTION THEORIES as proposed by Charles Darwin, and by the I. A. H. B.

• THE HUMOR-IS-GOOD-FOR-YOU THEORIES as proposed by Norman Cousins, et. al.

• THE SUPERIORITY THEORIES as proposed by Aristotle, Plato, Thomas Hobbes, Henri Bergson, and Charles Gruner

• THE INCONGRUITY THEORIES as proposed by Immanuel Kant, Arthur Shopenhauer, Paul McGhee and John Morreall

• THE SURPRISE THEORIES as proposed by René Descartes

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• THE AMBIVALENCE THEORIES (FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS) as proposed by Socrates

• THE CONFIGURATIONAL THEORIES (GESTALT RECOGNITION AND SUDDEN INSIGHT) as proposed by G. W. F. Hegel

• THE PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORIES as proposed by Sigmund Freud

• THE RELEASE AND RELIEF THEORIES as proposed by Harvey Mindess and William Fry

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A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT HUMOR THEORIES:

• FEATURES

• FUNCTIONS

• SUBJECTS

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FEATURES OF HUMOR: INCONGRUITY AND

INCONGRUITY RESULUTION

Unresolved

Resolved

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FEATURES OF HUMOR:SURPRISE AND TENSION

• Surprise– Garden Path– Epiphany

• Tension and Relief

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ALLEEN NILSEN’S FEATURES OF HUMOR

• Ambiguity• Exaggeration• Understatement• Hostility• Incongruity or Irony• Situation-Insight• Sudden Insight• Superiority• Surprise or Shock• A Trick or Twist• Word Play

(A. Nilsen Living Language 202-203)

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EXPLAIN THE FEATURES IN THE FOLLOWING JOKES:

• David Letterman’s first job in broadcasting was at Ball State University’s classical music radio station, WBST. He was a constant trial to Tom Watson, the manager, who in exasperation fired him after he introduced the song “Clair de Lune” with “You know the de Lune sisters; there was Claire; there was Mabel….”

• Word Play

(A. Nilsen Living Language 204)

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• Left to our own devices, we Wobegonians go straight for the small potatoes.

• Majestic doesn’t appeal to us; we like the Grand Canyon better with Clarence and Arlene parked in front of it smiling.

• Understatement

(Nilsen & Nilsen Encyclopedia 301)

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• Will Rogers solemnly declared, “They have an unwritten law in the Senate that a new member is not allowed to say anything when he first gets in, and another unwritten law that whatever he says afterward is not to amount to anything.”

• Superiority

(A. Nilsen Living Language 205)

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• A good man dies and goes to heaven. When St. Peter asks him if there’s anything he can do for him, the man explains that he would love to talk to Mary, the mother of Jesus. St. Peter is happy to set up such a meeting. After a few polite formalities, the man tells Mary the purpose of his request. He has always wanted to ask her something.

• When she encourages him to go ahead, he says, “I’ve wondered why in all your pictures you look so sad. Please tell me what it is.” Mary sighs and then with a little wistful smile confesses, “I always wanted a daughter.

• Incongruity and Surprise(A. Nilsen Living Language 205)

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• In one of her routines, eleven-year-old Claire Friedman told about a classmate she calls Tiffany: “During lunch, Tiffany was staring at her carton of orange juice. I asked why. She said, “The box says concentrate.”

• Claire said, “Tiffany is so dumb she’d get fired from an M&M factory for throwing away all the Ws.

• Superiority, Hostility, Wordplay

(A. Nilsen Living Language 204)

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• During the 1960s, there was talk of nominating Senator Margaret Chase Smith for President of the United States. One reporter stuck a microphone in her face and asked, “Mrs. Smith, what would you do if you should wake up some morning and find yourself in the White House?”

• Without batting an eye she responded, “I would go to the president’s wife, apologize, and leave immediately.”

• Situation, Surprise,etc.

(A. Nilsen Living Language 204)

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• A four-year-old was brought to the emergency room of a hospital with a bad cough.

• The child kept up a nonstop conversation while the nurse was trying to assess her lung sounds. Finally, the nurse said, “Shhh, I have to see if Barney is in there.” The child looked at her and calmly stated, “I have Jesus in my heart. Barney is on my underwear.”

• Surprise, Incongruity, etc.

(A. Nilsen Living Language 204)

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• At the opening of a new play, George Bernard Shaw sent two tickets to Winston Churchill. Shaw wrote on the letter, “Here is a ticket for you and your friend—if you have one.”

• Churchill sent back the tickets with a message for Shaw. “I can’t attend on the opening night, but I would love to go to the second performance—if you have one.”

• Hostility, Exaggeration, Word Play, etc.(A. Nilsen Living Language 204)

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• In Alice in Wonderland, the Mock Turtle explains to Alice that he “only took the regular course.” “What was that?” inquired Alice. “Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, and then the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”

• Word Play, etc.

(A. Nilsen Living Language 205)

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Literary Functions of Humor:Scripts and Double Entendre

• “The text of a joke is always fully or in part compatible with two distinct scripts and the two scripts are opposed to each other in a special way.”

• “The punchline triggers the switch from the one script to the other by making the hearer backtrack and realize that a different interpretation [of the joke] was possible from the very beginning.”

(Attardo and Raskin [1991] 308)

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PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF HUMOR

– Arousal– Social Control– Establishment of Superiority– Relief, and Release– Ego Defense, Coping, and Saving Face– Gaining Status– Healing– Testing Limits

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SELF-DISPARAGEMENT

• Self-disparagement humor is actually intended to empower the user. Here are some effective ads using self-disparagement:

• Terminix Pest Control: “When you think of pests, think of us.

• Twist Lemon-Menthol Cigarettes: “Our new menthol is a lemon.”

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• Champion International Trend Carpet: “Eight million people walked all over us. And they don’t even know our name.”

• Quaker Oats as a diet food: “Quaker Oats: Breakfast of losers.”

• Simmons bunk beds: “Simmons beds are a lot of bunk.”

(Nilsen & Nilsen 273)

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EDUCATIONAL FUNCTIONS OF HUMOR

– Teaching and Learning

– Arguing and Persuading

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SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF HUMOR

– In-Bonding and Out-Bonding

– Promoting Social Stability and Control

– Promoting Social Change

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SUPERIORITY VS. INCONGRUITY

• In Reflections upon Laughter, Frances Hutcheson argued against Thomas Hobbes’s century-old superiority theory.

• He pointed out that people don’t go to asylums to laugh at the “inferior” beings, nor do we laugh at animals unless they resemble human beings.

• We laugh at someone who slips on a banana peel not because we feel superior, but because of the incongruity between our expectations and the sudden insight.

(Nilsen & Nilsen 163)

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!SUBJECTS OF HUMOR

– Ethnic Identification

– Politics

– Sexual Roles and Scatology

– Occupations

– Religion and Belief Systems

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• !!OLD TABOOS AND CENSORSHIP

• These are the taboo areas in American English. They’re the subjects that we can’t talk about, but we must talk about.

• But these taboos are changing. Most of our censorship used to come from the right, but now our censorship is coming from both the right and the left. Censorship from the left is called “political correctness.”

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• !!!NEW TABOOS AND CENSORSHIP

• TABOO AND CENSORSHIP FROM THE RIGHT INCLUDES:– Sex, Religion, Body Parts, Swear Words, Obscenities

and Vulgarities

• TABOO AND CENSORSHIP FROM THE LEFT (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS) INCLUDES:– Women, Gays, Disabled People, Ethnic Minorities and

Old People

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HUMOR WEB SITES AMERICAN COMEDY ARCHIVES (JENNI MATZ):www.emerson.edu/comedy

THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF PLAY:http://www.tasplay.org

COMEDY ARCHIVES (JENNI MATZ):http://www.greaterboston.tv/features/gb_20060509_comedy.html

COMEDY USA (BARRY WEINTRAUB):www.comedyusa.com

THE HUMOR COLLECTION (RUTH HAMILTON):www.thehumorcollection.org

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HUMOR MATTERS (STEVE SULTANOFF):http://www.humormatters.com

THE HUMOR PROJECT (JOEL GOODMAN):www.HumorProject.com

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF HUMOR STUDIES (MARTIN LAMPERT):

www.humorstudies.org

ISHS HISTORICAL SITE (DON NILSEN):http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/WWW/MathNat/Ruch/SecretaryPage.html

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LAUGHING JAPAN (TILL WEINGAERTNER):http://www.tillchan.typepad.com/laughing

MIRTH: HUMOR AND LAUGHTER IN TEACHING (RON BERK):www.mirthium.com

PARENTING HUMOR (TIM BETE):http://www.TimBete.com

A PLAYFUL PATH TO WHOLENESS (BERNIE DEKOVEN):http://www.deepfun.com

SNIGLETS (RICH HALL):http://www.ziplink.net/users/wood/funny/snigglets.html

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